Governing with the more-than-human world

Exploring the intersection of democracy and the natural world, discussing the importance of governing with, not just for, the more-than-human world, and practical ways to incorporate this perspective.

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Small actions, like learning about the ecological roles of species (such as bats or wolves), spending mindful time in nature, or exploring Indigenous perspectives, can help build this deeper philosophical connection. These inner shifts ripple outward, influencing how we view ourselves not as masters of the natural world, but as stewards and custodi... See more

Jonathan Aronson • Restoring Respect for Nature: How Mindset Shifts Can Solve the Biodiversity Crisis

These emerging political imaginaries take on the intellectual work of breaking out of the polarisation between a wholly human-centric worldview (of the kind found in orthodox economics and most twentieth-century politics) and the extreme ecological view in which humans are to be despised and rejected. Such a reconnection was the promise of complexi

Geoff Mulgan • Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination

When we open ourselves to the voices of the more-than-human world, this is always the result: a breaching and collapsing of the established borders of thought and feeling.

James Bridle • Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence

A world in which the environment itself was dominant, an ecological world, is of much longer duration and, despite the thoughtless exercise of our power, has never gone away. Indeed, the tumult in which we find ourselves today might be considered its violent reassertion. The task that lies ahead of us involves less a novel change in ourselves than

James Bridle • Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence

We have been living a myth. We have constructed a dream. We have cajoled and seduced ourselves into believing we are the center of all things; with plants and other sentient beings from ants to lizards to coyotes and grizzly bears, remaining subservient to our whims, desires, and needs. This is a lethal lie that will be seen by future generations a... See more

Terry Tempest Williams • The Pall Of Our Unrest

We are anthropos, and we have no other means of addressing these worlds than through our own. But if we can consciously bear in mind the fact of our difference, if we can recognize our own limited perspective while not enforcing it upon others, these things need not be a barrier to accessing and acting on the basis of shared interests and intention